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Monthly ritual: taking his cooks and their families to Sunday dinner at the restaurant of their choice

Houston's hottest chef, Chris Shepherd, is into pedicures. The co-owner of Underbelly is a man's man, a definite carnivore (his restaurant was built around the concept of an in-house butchering room) and a Texans fan. He's also completely OK with sitting in a comfy chair in the back of his favorite pedicure place, the Isle PediSpa, sipping a glass of white wine and having his feet scrubbed, soaked, slathered, waxed and his toenails painted Texans blue - on his day off.

Q: You come here once a week?

A: No, not enough. I used to come here quite a bit. I get a pedicure if I can, when I can, but this is home and heaven to me.

Q: Did you have any reservations when you got your first pedicure?

A: Yes, absolutely. It was weird. I'm very curious. "You're getting the power sander out?" I think I sat and apologized. A lot. I'm on my feet 15 hours a day, I'm sure there's a lot of callouses down there.

Q: Did you or your wife suggest this little ritual the first time?

A: No, she did. Bring a bottle of wine, I can watch "SportsCenter," she can read magazines, just the way that made the day right.

Q: What was your typical day off like before Underbelly?

A: Come in here, relax for an hour, generally end up at Kata (Robata) for lunch, end up at Anvil for a cocktail. Or we talked to them (the pedicurists) about where we should go eat Vietnamese or somewhere in Chinatown, which Michelle (Nguyen, his favorite pedicurist) is well-versed in. To come in here, relax, watch "SportsCenter" and talk about food, to me, is the perfect day. Now it's a little bit more chaotic, so the timing is not always there.

Q: You're a Texans fan. Is that really the reason you chose Sundays as the one day Underbelly would be closed?

A: Yes, exactly. One hundred percent.

Q: You also tailgate. How does that work?

A: It's the same group of guys that get together every week. There's probably anywhere from 20 to 50 of us; it's not a big tailgate, but it's just done right. It's some of my old guys that worked with us (at Catalan), front-of-the-house guys, wine guys, it's customers, it's a lot of Catalan and Underbelly people. We'll see how this year's works out. It's probably gotten bigger this year. Last year was a little bit tough because I do the food, and I didn't have a kitchen last year. We'd shop all day, and then I would cook all night. Our house looked like a commissary.

Q: Have you ever taken any of your kitchen staff to get pedicures?

A: Antoine Ware (chef at the Hay Merchant, Shepherd's former sous chef at Catalan) and Matthew Pridgen, my general manager. I think most kitchen guys should do this.

Q: I can't help but noticing you have blue nail polish on right now. Do you get that every time?

A: Generally, it's always a Texans blue. I sometimes take requests from my friends' daughters. Randy Evans' (chef/owner at Haven) daughter, right before a vacation, said, "Get light blue; it's like the ocean." One time Bryan Caswell (chef/owner at Reef) called and said, "What are you doing?" I said, "Getting a pedicure." He said, "Hey, my daughter asked me if you could do purple." So I said, "All right."

It's funny because the second time we did this, I'm sitting here thinking, "Do I wear sandals, do I not wear sandals? How freaky is this?" And it was going to the farmers market and having a guy just stare at my feet. Then, the next week, he was like, "Did you change colors? That's why I come to the farmers market. I want to see what color you're going to have. That's how my wife gets me here." So I started to change the colors up. If that guy's going to go support the market, then I might as well do that. And now, it's quite hilarious because people will just look down and be like, "You paint your toes?" And I say, "And you have tattoos." I can change this, you know?